U.S.: N. Korea Ready To Shut Down Reactor

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said Friday that North Korea is prepared to promptly carry out a pledge to shut down its main nuclear reactor, but warned that the country's complete denuclearization will not be easy.

Hill, spoke to reporters following his return earlier in the day from a brief, surprise trip to North Korea, where he held talks with the country's chief nuclear negotiator and foreign minister.

"I come away from this two-day set of meetings buoyed by a sense that we are going to be able to achieve our full objectives, that is complete denuclearization," Hill said.

Hill also said, however, that he is "also burdened by the realization of the fact that we're going to have to spend a great deal of time, a great deal of effort, a lot of work in achieving these."

Tensions surrounding the North's nuclear programs heightened in October last year when the communist country carried out its first nuclear test explosion, sparking outrage worldwide.

In February, North Korea promised China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. that it would shut down its main nuclear fuel processing facility at Yongbyon by mid-April.

That was delayed, however, due to a dispute over $25 million in allegedly illicit North Korean funds frozen in a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau.

"The DPRK indicated that they are prepared promptly to shut down the Yongbyon facility as called for in the February agreement," Hill said, referring to the North by the abbreviation of its official name.

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On Saturday, the North's state media said it had invited inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the country next week. North Korea expelled the U.N. nuclear watchdog in 2002.

Hill said earlier this week that the financial problem had been solved and that North Korea had received the money.

Hill is the chief U.S. envoy to the six-party framework of nations that to work toward North Korea's nuclear disarmament. Besides North Korea and the U.S., the other members are China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Despite promises by North Korea, the six-party process, which began in August 2003, has failed to achieve any concrete action by the country toward denuclearization.

Hill also said Pyongyang is ready to completely disable the reactor, also in line with the February agreement, "although we must work out the details."

He said that both North Korea and the U.S. "reaffirmed our commitment to the February agreement and to the complete fulfillment of that February agreement."

Hill also said that he and the North Korean officials expressed their support for holding an early meeting of chief delegates to the six-way talks, as well as a meeting of foreign ministers from those countries.

The U.S. envoy, who carried the rank of assistant secretary of state, said that he was invited to visit North Korea by Kim Kye Gwan, his negotiating counterpart, and made no effort to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Hill went to Seoul earlier Friday for consultations with South Korean officials. He appeared at the press conference along with his South Korean counterpart in the six-party talks, Chun Yung-woo.

"The talks were very detailed, very substantive and I believe they were also very useful and positive," Hill said of his approximately 24 hours in the North.

Hill said he planned to travel to Japan to brief officials there and would also talk with his Russian and Chinese partners.

The visit by Hill, coming before North Korea makes good on its promises, appeared to demonstrate how much the U.S. wants to achieve a breakthrough in efforts to dismantle Pyongyang's atomic weapons program.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has in the past preferred to meet the North with regional powers like China and Japan at the talks.

But the U.S. has been moving away from that limitation, holding meetings on the sidelines of summits and sending White House adviser Victor Cha to Pyongyang earlier this year. Hill's trip is the clearest indication yet of a more direct approach.

The U.S. and North Korea have been at odds since the 1950-53 Korean War and do not have formal diplomatic relations.